My first interaction with Advocates for Children was as a parent, not as a pediatrician. When my children were young, I had the good fortune to attend AFC’s Parenting Matters conference. Of all the parenting interactions I have had, Anthony Wolf’s keynote speech at that conference was the most helpful and influential for me.

When one becomes a parent, one has available to them the recollections of their childhood, and how their own parents reared them. These memories can be helpful or a burden. Either way, they serve as the template upon which a parent will build their own parenting model. Happy and blessed is the parent who had a wonderful parent to emulate. However, for the parent who had negative parenting experiences as a child, it may be clear what behaviors they do not wish to use as a parent; what may be more difficult is figuring out how to become the parent they wish to be.

Old, learned tendencies come to the surface under the stress of parenting. A parent can be left at the end of the day bewildered and unhappy by their response to their children’s demands. Yet, often a parent does not know what to do, or to whom to turn.

Enter Advocates for Children and their marvelous home visiting program: Healthy Families Androscoggin. This is a home-based parent education program that strives to improve the quality of parenting, and thus the quality of the experience for children growing up in our families. The program is designed for first-time parents; families qualify if either parent is a first-time parent. HFA follows families from the prenatal period until the child turns 5 years old. The visits are made weekly, biweekly or monthly.

The goals Healthy Families Androscoggin wishes to achieve reflect the high ideals of the program. For pregnant women, children and families, these goals include promoting health and well-being, supporting healthy family relationships, creating connections to community resources, providing parenting activities, and preparing children to be ready to enter school. At the community level, these goals include promoting referral and support services, as well as reducing child abuse and neglect.

Working tirelessly to achieve these goals are direct service providers. All of the HFA staff have bachelor-level degrees, receive national certification in child development and home-visiting service delivery, and must complete a minimum of 20 hours of continuing education annually (although the staff at AFC averaged more than four times that amount of continuing education last year). We have the good fortune to have a very skilled, educated and dedicated staff providing these services.

How many families in Androscoggin County actually receive this service? In 2009, 314 did. The current family load is 180. For these families 2,896 home visits have been made. These are substantial numbers, and speak of much education and learning opportunities happening in our community.

But a greater testimonial to the help this program provides is not the numbers of families receiving it, but the feedback of the families receiving the services. Seventy-one percent of participating families responding to a recent survey provided the following feedback:

One hundred percent reported they would recommend the program to other first-time parent; 92 percent reported participating in the program changed their parenting skills; and 91 percent reported the information and support received through home visiting services enhanced their ability to respond safely and calmly to their child during stressful times in their lives.

Advocates for Children helped put me on a path to becoming a healthier parent for my children. Since then, they have expanded their scope and now offer the Healthy Families Androscoggin home visiting program. It is an opportunity for every first-time parent in Androscoggin County: an opportunity not to be missed.

In my work as a pediatrician, I have witnessed the excellent results for families that participate in HFA. I encourage all first-time parents to ask about it at their prenatal visits, on the maternity ward, at their babies’ first visits to their health care provider.

Stephen B. Jacobs, M.D., is a pediatrician with Central Maine Pediatrics, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a board member of Advocates for Children. For more information, call 783-3990 or visit www.advocatesforchildren.net.